Republicans: Spare Me Your Newfound “Fiscal Responsibility”

At his press conference on Monday, President Barack Obama had to remind Mara Liasson of Fox News and NPR that it was the Republicans who doubled the national debt over the past eight years and it’s a little strange to be hearing lectures from them now about how to be fiscally responsible. That interchange was my favorite part of the press conference. A savvy inside-the-Beltway reporter of Ms. Liasson’s caliber shouldn’t have to be reminded that George W. Bush and the Republican Congress were among the most fiscally reckless politicians in U.S. history.

The most inexcusable action the Republican Congress and the Bush administration took vis-à-vis the federal budget was to launch two wars and two open-ended occupations without raising one dime in revenues to pay for them. Never in the history of this country has an administration and Congress cut taxes while launching open-ended wars.

Bush and the Republican Congress didn’t think twice before throwing the entire $850 billion price tag for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars right onto the national debt. Not only did they refuse to pass new “revenue enhancements” to pay for the wars, but they also fought tooth and nail to block any legislation that would raise revenues. They didn’t budge an inch on repealing the totally irresponsible Bush tax cuts of 2001 that immediately ballooned the deficit before 9-11. Any “conservative” administration and Congress (one would think) would either raise taxes to pay for their new wars or at least roll back the tax cuts they enacted upon seizing power. In 2008, John McCain campaigned on making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

So pardon me for not being moved when I hear Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Jon Kyl, Lindsey Graham, John Boehner, and other Washington Republicans (along with the Right’s echo chamber) whining and griping about the “excessive spending” in the stimulus bill and the effects it will have on the national debt.

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The journalist Will Bunch illustrates the cultural production and consumption of an ersatz Reaganism that contemporary Republicans are aping in his new book, Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future. Bunch lifts the veil on the Reagan myth and shows that it is a product of a “Ronald Reagan Legacy Project” that rightwingers launched in 1997. “The areas where Bush diverged” from Reagan, Bunch writes, “were the areas where the Gipper had done his very best: using rhetoric to motivate and inspire confidence, dealing with mistakes and those times when compromise or even backpedaling were necessary, [and] a willingness to talk to enemies…” (pp. 168-169).

The posturing of the Washington Republicans since Obama was elected proves correct the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard when he outlined his understanding of “simulacrum” in advanced capitalist societies where ideologies and images are copies of copies without originals. It’s the kind of Reaganism mass produced on T-shirts and coffee mugs, not the real record of Reagan’s actions when he was president like his “cutting and running” in Lebanon, or his raising taxes 13 times to ward off an even worse fiscal crisis, or his negotiating in an atmosphere of detente with the Soviet Union he once called an “evil empire.” The Republicans today are conforming to an ideology based on a myth that other Republicans created in 1997, a copy of a copy without an original.

So in 2009 what is left of the Grand Old Party? It appears that Republican politics today have become the politics of pastiche: They love independent women like Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter yet they hate independent women like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi; they love tax cuts and deregulation yet they also love to control women’s bodies and decide who shall marry and who shall not; they love fictive workers like Joe the Plumber yet they hate real workers who want to pass the Employee Free Choice Act; and they hate the Senate filibuster until they love it to death. And while the “angry white male” is becoming the UNEMPLOYED “angry white male” the Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele says “work” does not mean “jobs.”

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About Joseph Palermo

Joseph Palermo is Professor of History, California State University, Sacramento. Professor Palermo's most recent book is The Eighties (Pearson 2012). He has also written two other books: In His Own Right: The Political Odyssey of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (Columbia, 2001); and Robert F. Kennedy and the Death of American Idealism (Pearson, 2008). Before earning a Master's degree and Doctorate in History from Cornell University, Professor Palermo completed Bachelor's degrees in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Master's degree in History from San Jose State University. His expertise includes the 1980s; political history; presidential politics and war powers; social movements of the 20th century; the 1960s; and the history of American foreign policy. Professor Palermo has also written articles for anthologies on the life of Father Daniel Berrigan, S.J. in The Human Tradition in America Since 1945 (Scholarly Resources Press, 2003); and on the Watergate scandal in Watergate and the Resignation of Richard Nixon (CQ Press, 2004).

Comments

We have a similar situation in the UK now whereby the new coalition government is having to make drastic cuts in order to reduce the burden of debt that has built up. They are always keen to lay the blame firmly at the feet of the previous labour government, and almost without exception all parties and the public agree that cuts have to be made. Of course, as soon as specifics are mentioned then their is a public outcry, not least from the previous government. I guess that is just politics

Sure, Bush was fiscally irresponsible. So was the Republican Congress. Does that excuse President Obama and the Democratic Congress? This post misses the point completely. How about this? I concur with every point you made in this post. The Republicans abandoned every fiscally responsible principle that brought them to power in the first place. However, if the Republicans eroded our budget to such an egregious degree (and I agree, they did), doesn’t that make the fiscally irresponsible descisions being made by the Obama administration that much more dangerous? If you would like to focus on the past while the current administration mortgages our future, do so at all our peril. I’m very disappointed in this post….

John Hummel: 100% correct, sir! The lies and spin finally caught up with those charlatans in 2006 and 2008, and it will again in 2010, when the GOP loses even more seats and the Dems capture a true filibuster proof majority. The Republicans just DON’T SEEM TO GET IT. Any rational person would see what has happened to this country financially over the past decade (hell, since the 1980s) and would learn from their mistakes, but not the Republicans currently running the show in their party. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few rational and reasonable Republicans, but their leadership is completely clueless and DANGEROUS at that. The partisanship shown by the Republicans over the past 4 months has been staggering in its petty ignorance and astounding in its scope and breadth.

I actually respect people like Ron Paul. I don’t agree with his economic theories or positions – but he’s a man who has a viewpoint, and he’s going to stick with it. He voted against the war based on that principle, he voted against bailouts and stimulus.

Again, I believe he was wrong – but I can respect a guy who holds onto his principles.

The other 90-odd percent of the members of Congress/Senate/Pundacracy of Republicans I don’t respect. How can I respect someone like Mike Huckabee who outright lies about the intention of the “don’t use education funds in the stimulus bill to build churches” is to “make sure students could never talk openly and honestly about their faith ” (Swampland) – when this is language that’s been in bills for 40 years to prevent, well, people from building churches with federal dollars, not to prevent them from talking about faith or bringing bibles to their dorm or any other boogymen.

I can’t respect people who invent pork projects that don’t exist, like the false “salt mouse” protection plan that doesn’t exist (Media Matters), or who make up false claims of “government ordering your doctor around” such as the claims made by Dr. Betsy McCaughey (Beta Culture 11).

If it was a serious, principled stand against spending government money, fine. But combine that with the flat out lying about what is (or isn’t) in the stimulus bill, the hypocrisy of “spending money on a war financed by huge deficits is A-OK, but spending money to fix roads/schools/etc is stealing money from future generations that will actually *use* the roads/schools/etc” has nothing to do with principle.

It’s all about “winning.” It’s small, it’s petty. And, to be honest, I don’t see it going very far. You can only play obstructionist and liar for so long before you are caught, and people get angry about it.

They’ll trust a person who really believes what they’re saying. But a liar? Not for long.

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